September 1, 2014 Liberty, Missouri

Holy Cow! 

What a day of awesome emails! All, I have to say is I am super excited about all the family stuff that will be happening in the next few weeks and months! It is all so exciting :)

Well, it has been quite the morning. So, on the way to morning sports at 6:20am, a bunny committed suicide by racing right under my car as I was driving by and getting run over by my tire. Then, we went home got ready for the day and started our laundry. The washer worked fine for sister Barrow, and then I put my darks in and the washer won't drain and spin dry my clothes. I put it to every rinse cycle and as soon as the rinse is done and is supposed to drain nothing happens. So Elder Kastel (senior missionary) told us he will go over to the apartment and look at the pump to see if he can fix it while we e-mail. Seriously, the Kastels are so nice and spoil us to death. They even want to take us to lunch today.

This week we have had some pretty crazy weather. We had a huge thunderstorm on Friday night, and I woke up in the middle of the night to a huge flash of lightning that kept the sky lit up for literally 15 seconds, and then as the sky was still lit up I heard a booming crack of thunder. I thought that the lightning struck the ground just outside our window, it scared me so bad. Well, when we got up the next morning, it turned out that the lightning had struck a tree and a transformer box on a telephone pole. The wires were dangling with about 2 feet of the top of the pool splintered off and half of the tree had broken off. All of that happened just across the parking lot from our apartment, CRAZY!

Last week, we were able to get quite a few referrals from the members and names of people they wanted us to visit. So, it was great receiving some assignments from the members and building trust with them as we would go see them ASAP and then report back to them on how the visits went. We hope that as we continue to do that over the next few weeks that maybe the members will begin to trust us enough to start giving us referrals of friends and neighbors that they want us to help share the gospel with. Also, our investigator A came to church on Sunday. She enjoyed it and her ll year old daughter H loved church! Sister Heiken did so awesome at helping A feel comfortable and explaining things that were unfamiliar to her. We invited her to come again and she said she wants to, but that she will have to give people in her Baptist church notice so that they can get someone to cover her sunday school class for her. So, she is progressing well. Also, S has been flying through the Book of Mormon all of a sudden and really enjoying it. 

Well, this week is transfer week. We had interviews with Elder Brenchley (the visitor center director over the VC and the historic Liberty Jail). From the interview and his comments to me on Sunday, I am pretty sure that I have done my time in Jail and am being transferred to go back and serve at the Independence Visitor Center :) But we'll see what will happen. He seemed extremely positive that I wouldn't go back out full proselyting, but you never know. Whatever the Lord wants will happen. Really anything is possible, I could stay one more and finish training Sister Barrow, I could go to the VC or I could go back out full proselyting. I'll find out tomorrow. If I do get transferred I will be really sad to leave behind S, A, A and Sister Heiken. Seriously, Sister Heiken is the most amazing member missionary ever!! She is so sweet and always tries to share the gospel in the most loving way ever!

I'm excited to see what will happen this week. Attached I have some pictures from our hobo party for sister Ray's birthday. We all got together at 6:30am and celebrated her birthday it was awesome! We ate oreos and pudding out of the cans. This is why the white handbook tells missionaries to "Be neat and clean. Bathe daily,if possible." These pictures are proof that if we just rolled out of bed and went out and worked we would look like a bunch of hobos ;) 

I hope that you are all doing well! 
Love, Sister Luening